


Came A Ship In From The Blue

by nothingelsematters



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Brian being a cute space nerd, Fluff and cuddles, M/M, Maylor - Freeform, Moon Landing, Roger being a cute biology nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 17:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19891768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingelsematters/pseuds/nothingelsematters
Summary: 20 July, 1969."Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."





	Came A Ship In From The Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I heard that Brian and Roger watched the moon landing together all those years ago, this has been brewing. And what better time than this anniversary?
> 
> I tried my best to time this right for when the astronauts stepped outside, but I was a little late.

A crackle of static burst out of the radio, and Roger felt Brian's hand tighten on his. His own heart was pounding, their eyes fixed on the small radio next to their bed, though they couldn't see anything.

If someone had told Roger a year ago that he'd be sitting here, cuddled up in Brian's bed with him, listening to man landing on the moon, he'd have laughed in their faces. He'd had no interest in space or the giant dick-measuring contest that was the space race.

But that was before he met Brian.

Brian, whose clever, incredible brain was a whirling galaxy of its own. Brian, whose eyes shone with the stars above. Brian, whose music made Roger feel like he was floating in the air. Beautiful, wonderful, brilliant Brian, whose heart was so completely given to the universe that if it had been a person, Roger would have been insanely jealous. But how could he be jealous of something that made Brian shine and glow like the dust clouds he studied?

And so here they were.

If Roger was truthful, he only pretended a disinterest in the space race. It suited the edgy rockstar image he was carefully cultivating. That, and most people saw his hair colour and simply assumed he was too dumb to understand it and okay, okay, _that_ pissed Roger off.

But Brian's enthusiasm was contagious, and the more he read about it, the more curious Roger was. Everything was entirely theoretical. They had no data to study, no samples to test. No-one knew how the bodies of the astronauts would react to the weightlessness of space and prolonged time up there. The more he read, the more Roger found he had to read. He read about space radiation, about bones leeching calcium, about the effects of diet and the cold and every other hypothetical that had been considered. For the first time, too, Roger really considered taking his biology degree further. Perhaps he'd study for his PhD, and become a biologist with a space agency, if this band didn't work out.

_It's a 1202._

_1202._

Brian's intake of breath was sharp.

"Bri?"

"The computer's overloaded," Brian whispered, his face white. "It could - they might have to abort."

_We're go on that alarm._

Roger could hardly breathe. They were going to do this with an overloaded computer? In fairness, he thought, he'd probably do the same. He couldn't imagine being so close to his goal and aborting the landing.

The chatter on the radio was largely incomprehensible, but Roger could feel just a tiny bit of tension leak out of Brian's body.

"It's going better," he breathed. "Oh - Rog, they're going to do it..."

And then:

_Program alarm. 1201._

"Oh my god." Brian's grip on Roger's hand was so tight that Roger was sure he was at risk of his bones snapping, but he could hardly blame Brian, even as the command to _go_ rattled through his ears.

_Pretty rocky area._

"They're close enough to see," Roger whispered, grabbing hold of Brian's arm with his other hand. "They're really going to do it!"

_600 feet, down at 19._

Roger had to remind himself to breathe.

_540 feet, down at 30, down at 15._

Brian's breathing was shallow and fast, and Roger could feel his heartbeat thundering through his chest.

_400 feet, down at 9, 58 forward._

It was agony. It felt like time had slowed to a halt. Roger realised he couldn't hear anything outside, even though it was only quarter past eight; everyone must be doing what they were doing.

_350 feet, down at 4. 330 feet, three and a half down._

Brian flexed his hand, easing his grip on Roger's; they shifted very slightly, and Brian's arm slipped around Roger's waist, pulling him closer.

_Okay, how's the fuel?_

_Eight percent._

Roger's heart jumped into his throat. Eight percent didn't sound like a lot. What if they ran out? They'd crash into the surface with no hope of rescue.

_Okay. Here's a - looks like a good area here._

_I got the shadow out there._

Feeling a slight shift, Roger tore his eyes away from the radio and looked up at Brian. Brian was utterly transfixed, his eyes bright, but a slow, glowing smile was starting to creep across his face, as the reality of what all the calls meant hit home.

They were landing on the moon.

 _Gonna be right over that crater_.

Brian hissed slightly, his face paling again, but he shook his head briefly and spoke quietly for the first time since the landing had started.

"They're the best pilots in the world," he said, and Roger suddenly realised he was speaking more to comfort himself than Roger. "They'll land it."

_100 feet, 3 and a half down, 9 forward. Five percent. Quantity light._

"They're running out of fuel," Roger realised, his heart sinking, and Brian bit his lip, his arm tightening around Roger's waist.

_60 seconds._

_30 feet, two and a half down._

"Come on...land it..."

_20 feet, down a half._

_30 seconds._

Roger thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest, it was beating so hard. To be so close...

 _Contact light_.

"Bri? Are they...?"

 _Shutdown_.

Brian's eyes went very round. "Rog, I think..."

_Engine stop._

Roger couldn't speak. He couldn't. Brian was staring at the radio, tears starting to gather in his eyes.

_We copy you down, Eagle._

_Engine arm off. Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed._

Air flooded into Roger's lungs all at once as he let go of the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. "Yes!"

"Rog, they did it!" Brian swept Roger up into his arms, tears running down his face. "Oh god, Rog, they did it!"

Roger clung tight to Brian, slowly becoming aware that he was crying too. Laughing, he leaned up and kissed him, gasping in surprise as Brian flipped him over and kissed him back even more fervently.

"We should celebrate."

"We should."

*

"Rog! Rog, wake up, hurry up, come on!"

Roger blinked, opening his eyes to see Brian bent over him, shaking his shoulder. Blearily, he looked around for the clock.

"Bri? 's the middle of the night...?"

"Rog, they're walking _now_!"

That woke Roger up.

"Now? I thought it wasn't supposed to be for hours! Weren't they meant to sleep?"

"Armstrong overruled the sleep order. They want to walk."

"Oh my god," Roger scrambled out of bed, grabbing his robe as he rushed out to the living area of the flat, where Brian had the TV on. "Will we see it?"

"I don't know," Brian frowned, consulting a small paper table in front of him, one that Roger could see was heavily annotated in Brian's flowing script. "It might be too early."

"What do you mean?"

"The pictures," Brian explained. "They'll be going through Honeysuckle and Parkes in Australia. But the moon doesn't rise there until 12:56pm. It's 12:46 there now. If they go outside too early, the telescopes won't get the pictures."

"Jesus. Is someone gonna tell the crew? Maybe they can wait a few minutes?"

A voice crackled out from the TV.

_About ready to go down and get some moon rock?_

Roger hurried and settled himself in on the couch beside Brian, curling up against his side and smiling as he felt Brian's arm around his waist again. Then Brian's eyes were fixed to the television, his eyes glittering, and Roger couldn't help but smile up at his beautiful spaceman, now so many miles away from him, waiting for the astronauts to walk on the moon.

_Houston, this is Neil. Radio check._

_Neil, this is Houston. Loud and clear. Break. Break. Buzz, this is Houston. Radio check, and verify TV circuit breaker in._

_Roger, TV circuit breaker's in. And read you loud and clear._

And then the TV flickered, and suddenly Roger realised what they were looking at.

It was the Moon. The astronauts were on the Moon, and the camera on the outside was filming. They were upside down for some reason, but they were on the _moon_!

_And we're getting a picture on the TV._

Roger could feel his smile stretching wider.

_Okay. Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now._

_Okay. I just checked getting back up to that first step, Buzz. It's...The strut isn't collapsed too far, but it's adequate to get back up._

"They broke the ladder?" Roger frowned at Brian; Brian wasn't looking away from the television but smiled slightly.

"Just a little, I think."

The picture on their screen flickered, and suddenly it was the right way up, and everything was much clearer. Brian tore his eyes away for the briefest moment to his table and breathed a sigh of relief.

"The moon's risen over Australia."

_I'm at the foot of the ladder. The LM footpads are only depressed in the surface about 1 or 2 inches, although the surface appears to be very, very fine grained, as you get close to it. It's almost like a powder. ground mass is very fine._

Roger wanted to look at Brian, to see how he was reacting, but he couldn't look away. He couldn't do anything other than watch the figure of Neil Armstrong.

_Okay. I'm going to step off the LM now._

Brian's hand found Roger's and squeezed gently.

_That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind._

Brian sniffed; Roger knew that if he looked, his lover would be crying again. Not that he could blame Brian. He felt dangerously close to tears himself.

Humankind had set foot on another surface. A surface beyond their world.

They watched in silence as the walk unfolded, as Aldrin joined Armstrong, as they played around on the moon's surface, conducting their experiments but with an almost childish joy.

"I love you," Brian said suddenly.

"I love you, too, Bri," Roger smiled, stroking Brian's arm. "What brought that on?"

"It just made me think - they're on the _moon_. The earth must look so small from there. We're so...insignificant in the scheme of things."

Roger leaned up and kissed Brian's cheek tenderly.

"Love, no matter how big the universe, you're never insignificant to me."

Brian pulled his eyes away from the history unfolding and smiled broadly, and Roger thought that his eyes were brighter than stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone had a great Moon Day!
> 
> (I must be a little patriot and had to throw in the reference to our major role in the television pictures. Honeysuckle and Parkes FTW.)


End file.
